Heritage

The Early Days

The first Tamil Methodist Church was then established with Rev Underwood as its pastor. This then become the second Methodist Church in Singapore.

God laid the foundation for the Tamil Methodist Church in Singapore when in 1884, the South Indian Annual Conference appointed William F Oldham as a Missionary to Singapore. Oldham, accompanied by Rev and Mrs James Thoburn, arrived in Singapore on 7 Feb 1885, to pioneer the Methodist work here. A Tamil speaking Englishman, William Oldham had a strong yearning to bring the Gospel to the Indians in Singapore. In September 1885, with his fluency in Tamil, Oldham began holding regular Sunday services in the prisons for the incarcerated Tamil prisoners. By the end of 1886, regular Sunday and weekday services were being held in Tamil.

In 1887, a Tamil preacher, C W Underwood, was recruited from Jaffna, Ceylon, to work with the Tamil people. The Tamil Methodist Church was thus established with Underwood as her pastor. This then became the second Methodist Church in Singapore. Rev Underwood was instrumental in starting the Tamil Boys School in 1885 and Tamil Girls’ School (now known as Methodist Girls’ School) in 1887.

By 1889, the congregation grew too large for its chapel and moved to Short Street. In 1912, the Epworth League (now known as the Methodist Youth Fellowship) was established. The church embarked on a program of financial selfsufficiency and launched its building fund in 1915 towards its efforts to build a church on a piece of land in Short Street. In 1925, the foundation stone for the new church was laid by Bishop Titus Lowe.

Church Planting and Missions

TMC is the mother-church of seven other churches of the ETAC. Missionaries have been sent to Indian sub-continent, the Americas, and now Africa.

After 1925 when the church premises were completed, the church then turned its attention to evangelistic work in the Pasir Panjang area and constituted the Pasir Panjang Tamil Methodist Church from a preaching point in 1927. The first Methodist Church was also constituted in Johor under the pastoral care of Rev Pakianathan, TMC’s pastor at that time. It was during this time when evangelism amongst the Tamil Christians in Seletar Naval Base began. Preaching points in Seletar and Sembawang were then constituted as churches in 1935 and 1937 respectively.

Rev T R Doraisamy, who ministered between 1951 and 1954, was instrumental in ministering to the Hindustani congregation which in 1953 matured into the Punjabi Church. He went on to become the first Tamil Bishop of the Methodist Church in Singapore and Malaysia.

Rev Prabhu Das Roberts became pastor in 1969 for the next 27 years and it was during this time when the church sent out a number of missionsaries in various mission fields.

In the 70s and 80s, members offered their houses as places of worship and house churches were started in Jurong, Ang Mo Kio, Marsling, and Toa Payoh. These house churches were eventually constituted as churches in 1977 , 1980, and 1982 respectively.

Rev R Prabhu, who pastored TMC between 2002 and 2003 pioneered the Telugu Fellowship . What started out as 4 members grew into a formally constituted church in 2008 with hundreds of regular attendees at Sunday evening services.

Pastor Roll

Called to serve – Pastoral leaders of the Tamil Methodist Church

01. William Underwood 1887‐1890
02. Rev H I Hoisington 1890‐1892
03. Simon Peter 1897‐1903
04. Thomas Paul Ponniah 1904‐1907
05. Manuel Gnanamuthu 1907‐1909
06. Rev Paul Kuppusamy 1909‐1910
07. Rev J A Supramaniam 1909‐1910, 28‐31
08. B D Henry 1910‐1914
09. Rev J J Kovilpillai 1914‐1916
10. Rev Y J Jesudason 1916‐1919
11. Rev M R Doraisamy 1919‐1924, 31‐33
12. Rev S S Pakianathan 1924‐1928, 34‐37
13. Rev S M Tevathasan 1931
14. Rev J J Kingham 1932‐1933
15. Rev Abel Eklund 1933‐1934
16. Rev J V Ayaduray 1938‐1947, 55‐64
17. Rev C B Paul 1948‐1951
18. Rev T R Doraisamy 1951‐1954
19. Rev Robert Foster 1965
20. Rev C A Watson 1965‐1968
21. Rev R Prabhu Das 1969‐1982, 84‐96
22. Rev I G Sunderarajan 1982‐1984
23. Rev Dr Robert Solomon 1996-1998
24. Rev Dr J Daniel 1997
25. Rev Dr E J Thoraisingham 1998-1999
26. Rev S D Sadagopan 2000-2002
27. Rev R Prabhu 2002-2003
28. Rev Dr Vinson Samuel 2004-2007
29. Rev Nagulan James 2008-2013
30. Rev Anil Kumar Samuel 2013
 31. Rev. Jeyapaul Sitther 2013-2015
 32. Rev James Nagulan 2016 – 2020
 33. Rev Vijay Joseph 2021 ….